Power exposes the Tories’ internal tensions

They don’t know in No 10 if they are living through an episode of Yes Minister or The Thick of It, Mr Bean or 2012. As the plotline of this political saga has veered improbably in the past few weeks from donors to pasties, kitchen suppers to jerry cans, secret trials to the surveillance state, strategists have been unsure whether to laugh or cry.

Now, though, as charities, arts institutions and universities join grannies, churches and the conservatory-building classes as victims of the Chancellor’s tax axe, the Downing Street drama is quickly turning from comedy to tragedy for the politicians. “I think the technical term is omnishambles,” says one government source. “Otherwise known as a clusterf**k.”